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You have questions - we have answers!
During FY2022, Staff responded to over 850 requests for advice across all of our program areas. Our General Counsel and Compliance teams work collaboratively to maintain a high level of both timeliness and substantive quality in responding to advice requests. The Board and General Counsel provide guidance through formal, written opinions. Staff continues to provide informal guidance by email and telephone, and meets regularly with requestors on Zoom and Teams.
Formal Advice
Formal Advice
Formal, written opinions issued by the Board or the General Counsel provide detailed analysis of the application of the ethics laws to the specific facts provided by a requestor. Requestors are entitled to act in reasonable reliance on advisory opinions issued to them and not be subject to penalties under the laws within the Board’s jurisdiction so long as they have not omitted or misstated material facts. Requestors can choose to receive a non-public advisory opinion, which in its published form is redacted to conceal facts that are reasonably likely to identify a requestor.
A total of fourteen formal opinions ⎼ nine Board Opinions and five General Counsel Opinions ⎼ were issued in FY2022. Electronic copies of each opinion are available by using the links in the menus below.
Legal Authority
Legal Authority
Charter Section 4-1100 and Code Chapter 20-600 authorize the Board to render advisory opinions concerning a City officer or employee’s proposed future conduct. Board Regulation No. 4 describes the procedures related to advisory opinions, including for requesting reconsideration or appeal of an advisory opinion issued by the General Counsel.
Home Rule Charter Section 4-1100 also gives the Board “concurrent authority” with the Law Department to advise City officials on the application of State law. Our advice on State law, however, does not provide protection from possible enforcement by the State Ethics Commission. For guidance on the State Ethics Act that would provide such protection, contact either the State Ethics Commission or the Law Department.
Home Rule Charter Section 4-1100 also gives the Board “concurrent authority” with the Law Department to advise City officials on the application of State law. Our advice on State law, however, does not provide protection from possible enforcement by the State Ethics Commission. For guidance on the State Ethics Act that would provide such protection, contact either the State Ethics Commission or the Law Department.
Board Opinions
Board Opinions
Board opinions generally address questions that require the application of the ethics laws to situations that have not yet been definitively addressed by legislation, regulation, or prior Board opinions.
General Counsel Opinions
General Counsel Opinions
The Board's General Counsel issues opinions applying and explaining the ethics laws in situations where the result is clear from the law or regulation, or where the Board has already provided a relevant interpretation. The Board does not deliberate on or approve General Counsel opinions, although a requestor may appeal a General Counsel Opinion to the Board.
Formal Opinion Topics
Formal Opinion Topics
As with informal advice, the number and topics of opinions are largely driven by requestor needs. In this second fiscal year examining the topics covered by formal opinions, we see an overall increase in the number of topics covered. The number of opinions covering financial disclosure increased versus FY2021. Another shift was the addition of opinions regarding gifts and campaign finance, neither of which was covered in FY2021.
Note that opinions often cover multiple topics.
FY2022 Board Opinions
FY2022 Board Opinions
Application of City Ethics Rules to Non-Profit Outside Employment of City Official
Application of City Ethics Laws to Members of Institutional Review Board
Whether City’s Campaign Contribution Limits Apply to Money Raised to Retire Debt Incurred for Legal Expenses
Request for Reconsideration of Non-Public Board Opinion No. 2022-003
Application of Conflict of Interest Rules to City Official whose Family Member is Employed by An Entity that Does Business with the City
Application of City’s Post-Employment Restrictions to Former City Employee Regarding Future Work for Government Entity
Application of Conflict of Interest Rules to Member of a City Commission
Application of City Gift and Gratuity Rules to Reward Program Administered by City Entity
Application of City Ethics Laws to Contractors of the Philadelphia Water, Sewer and Storm Water Rate Board
FY2022 General Counsel Opinions
FY2022 General Counsel Opinions
Application of ethics rules to a potential City employee who owns and operates a private business
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employees who are Members of the Board of a Nonprofit that Does Business with the City
Application of campaign finance rules to use of candidate political committee from a previous campaign for a campaign for a different City elective office
Application of Post-Employment and Lobbying Rules to Former City Employee’s Consulting Business
Application of Ethics Rules to City Employee in Supervisory Role in Office in which Family Member Works
Informal Guidance
Informal Guidance
Informal guidance makes up the majority of Board Staff's advice work. In FY2022, we responded to over 850 requests for informal advice. That total, however, only tells part of the story. Advice requests range from complex legal analyses to straightforward password reset requests, and everything in between. In FY2020, Board Staff began working to identify and interpret trends in informal advice requests. We continued to refine these data analysis and visualization efforts in FY2021 and FY2022.
These are not performance measures ⎼ Staff cannot control how many requests are received ⎼ but are part of our larger planning efforts for training, educational documents, and workload allocation.
Year-at-a-Glance
Year-at-a-Glance
Overview
Overview
Total informal guidance responses give a high-level snapshot. Compared to FY2021, there was a significant overall decrease in the total number of requests resolved, attributable almost entirely to a drop-off in Financial Disclosure requests. FY2021 is not, however, an accurate comparison because it included two filing deadlines for statements of financial interest (July 2020 and June 2021). In contrast, Ethics advice request remained stable, while campaign finance and lobbying each saw slight decreases.
*Because multiple topics may be associated with each request, the breakdown of requests by topics is approximate and reflects the proportion of total topics addressed adjusted for the total number of requests resolved.
Topics Covered
Topics Covered
In FY2020, Board Staff began tracking guidance responses more closely by both topic and type. Beginning in January 2021, we began noting each topic covered by a request for guidance, rather than assigning one topic to each request. As a result, the total topics covered in the accompanying visualizations exceeds the total responses. This approach better reflects both the complexity of our work and more accurately depicts which topics are "hot."
A similar visual summary, separated by filing and advice, is included in the monthly General Counsel Report to give the Board a snapshot of advice work for the preceding month as compared to the calendar year.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Plotting advice requests by general topic on a monthly basis gives an unsurprising result: a huge spike centered on the Financial Disclosure filing deadline. We see similar increases in other filing programs around major deadlines. Continued tracking may reveal other cycles for ethics advice.
Response Times: Overview
Response Times: Overview
Since February 2020, Board Staff has tracked the time to respond to informal guidance requests. In FY2022, approximately 70% of inquiries received a final response within one business day. More than 80% of guidance requests were resolved within three business days.
Response Times by Topic
Response Times by Topic
When broken down by topic, the response times consistently show that ethics questions (Conflicts, Contracts, Gifts, Political Activity, Post-Employment, & Representation) generally have a longer response time than questions related to Campaign Finance or Financial Disclosure.
Year-to-date reporting on response times by topic is provided to the Board in the monthly General Counsel Report.
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Informal Guidance
Ethics Overview
Ethics Overview
As noted above, FY2021 saw an expansion of General Counsel Staff's efforts to track and understand advice requests. This makes comparing FY2021 and FY2022 somewhat skewed, as we only tracked multiple topics per request beginning in January 2021. Note that the total topics necessarily exceed the total responses. Moving forward, we will have a clearer comparison to prior years.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
FY2022 monthly data suggests that other than an overall dip in January, shifts by month tend to be generally proportionate among topics.
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
Campaign Finance Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2021
FY2022 vs. FY2021
FY2022 reflects a slight decrease in campaign finance guidance requests. Consistent with comparisons to prior years, it also illustrates a fairly even split between advice and filing assistance.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Campaign Finance guidance shows fairly predictable spikes around pre- and post-election filing deadlines.
Financial Disclosure Informal Guidance
Financial Disclosure Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2021
FY2022 vs. FY2021
As noted above, FY2021 includes a disproportionate number of Financial Disclosure inquiries because it encompassed two filings (July 2020 and June 2021). Even accounting for that shift, overall Financial Disclosure questions decreased in FY2022, likely because of increased familiarity with changes to the City Form requirements.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Financial Disclosure guidance shows a predictable spike around the May 1 filing deadline.
Lobbying Informal Guidance
Lobbying Informal Guidance
FY2022 vs. FY2021
FY2022 vs. FY2021
Lobbying disclosures edged downward in FY2022. This year showed a more even split between substantive advice and filing guidance than FY2021.
Month-by-Month
Month-by-Month
Overall Lobbying guidance requests peaked around the filing deadlines, with the annual reporting deadline creating the largest jump in requests.
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